A planning commissioner and a veteran manager from a local
orphanage have joined the staff of Gilroy’s leading affordable
housing provider.
Gilroy – A planning commissioner and a veteran manager from a local orphanage have joined the staff of Gilroy’s leading affordable housing provider.
Planning commissioner and neighborhood activist Arthur C. Barron Sr. and Lynn Magruder, a long-time employee of Rebekah Children’s Services, joined nonprofit South County Housing in March.
Barron has been hired as a Neighborhood Developer who helps organize and raise awareness of community events, youth programs and other services. Magruder serves as a Management Analyst who helps with grant writing and ensuring the agency follows clearly defined internal policies and procedures.
The additions come as the agency pushes forward on a five-year plan to construct nearly 1,500 homes, more than double the housing stock it has built since its founding in 1979.
Barron, 44, is helping lay the groundwork for the agency’s centerpiece project – the redevelopment of the old cannery off Lewis Street into 201 homes and 40,000 square feet of retail space.
So far, he has spent the bulk of his time knocking on resident’s doors, recruiting neighborhood leaders, and setting up meetings with local groups such as the Downtown Business Association, Mexican American Community Services Agency and South Valley Junior High. They plan to organize neighborhood events and get new residents involved in existing groups.
Grassroots organizing is nothing new for Barron, who gained intimate knowledge of downtown Gilroy from his last job as a mailman and later used that knowledge to found the Gilroy Eigleberry Neighborhood Association. Most recently, he was appointed to a seat on the city’s seven-member Planning Commission, a group that reviews housing projects and policy and makes recommendations to city council. Barron recused himself from a recent vote related to a South County Housing project, and he said he plans to do the same in the future.
While Barron helps organize in neighborhoods, Magruder will rely on years of experience in the grant world to help the agency pull down increasingly scarce state and federal funding. Magruder has spent the last seven years writing grant applications and working on strategic plans for Rebekah Children’s Services, in Gilroy. Prior to that, she was on the other side of the grant world, doling out money as a grants officer for a state arts council and as an executive director for a Santa Cruz County grant maker.
At South County Housing, Magruder will also ensure that the agency’s nonprofit board of directors and top officials understand and follow internal protocols.
The additions bring South County Housing’s staff up to roughly 100. The agency started with two employees in 1979. The agency’s first project, the 14-unit Trees Apartments in Gilroy, was completed in 1982. Barron and Magruder’s intimate knowledge of Gilroy will prove crucial as South County expands its workforce and development efforts, according to spokesman Jack Foley.
“That strengthens us tremendously when it comes to our ability to serve our clientele and homebuyers in Gilroy,” Foley said. “We can do more now.”
